Sometime Around Midnight
by Silver Hearted
Summary: UPDATED! No longer one-shot! As his friends celebrate the five year anniversary of winning the war against Aizen, Ichigo mourns losing something that he can't even remember having in the first place. Rated M for language. Multi-chaptered fic now. IchiRuki
1. Sometime Around Midnight

**Okay, so I've been obsessed with the song _Sometime Around Midnight_ by The Airborne Toxic Event since I first heard it. Long before Ichigo and Rukia became truly separated after winning the war, I'd thought about how perfectly this song would fit them if she ever returned to Soul Society and left him in the world of the living. This piece is kind of a songfic, but the lyrics are actually woven into the prose instead of running parallel to the plot. Even better, I fully recommend listening to the song while you read this.**

* * *

><p><em>Sometime Around Midnight<em>

As he sat, caught in the midst of a celebration, his thoughts were anywhere but. The swirl of sake in the bottom of his glass held him transfixed as the party raged in a mad circle around him. Sado's band had the crowd entranced: bodies swaying, voices stuck in a laugh and the haze of alcohol giving the bar a distinctly brighter taint.

Ichigo wanted none of it.

His head down low, he signaled the bartender for another shot and prayed that maybe this next one would dull his mind enough that he could actually enjoy himself on this most cursed of days.

"Kurosaki!"

He didn't need so look to know that Ishida was coming up behind him. "Yeah?"

"Get out there and start having fun with the rest of us. You're depressing Inoue-san," Ishida said while collapsing into the seat on Ichigo's right.

"Don't feel like it yet. Give me another twenty minutes to get properly wasted."

"You idiot. What's there to get wasted for? This is a day for merriment. An annual celebration of the end of our troubles."

Like a word caught on the tip of his tongue, her image wavered ever-so-briefly in the back of his mind before blinking out when he tried to grasp onto it. He sighed wearily and waited a few more seconds to respond. "This just doesn't bring back the wonderful memories to me as it does to you."

"Look, we get that you don't really remember much of your . . . extracurriculars . . . during high school, but you know that we won a great victory five years ago. Why can't you accept that like everyone else seems to?"

"Because I don't have a single goddamn memory of winning shit! It's all gone . . . everything that I _know_ was important . . .was precious . . . to me." He wanted to rip his hair out as he captured on the one image he had of her: a white ribbon waving resiliently against the dark sky. Despite all attempts to see past it, to delve further into his own mind, five years' worth of effort had gained him no ground.

"Che . . . being a shinigami isn't all that great."

"Says the one who was raised to despise them." _And I wasn't talking about that anyway._

"Whatever. Just hurry up and join us."

Ichigo quickly gulped back another cup of the burning liquid and stared resolutely forward as his pseudo-friend walked away. He slammed the glass back down and was about to raise his hand for another when his eyes snagged on a flash of white amid the dark masses.

He was falling off the stool to stand for a better view before he could even process his actions. Back and forth, he fervently scanned the people in the bar until, there, he caught sight of the pure color once more. With a careless flick of the wrist, he tossed a few bills in the bartender's general direction and then began the dangerous game of weaving his way through the crowd.

Bumped, jostled and touched more freely than he normally would have tolerated from a close friend, Ichigo raced, as much as one can, though the sea of bodies, always pushing forward to where he last saw a glimpse of her tantalizing sight.

He jumped up again to find her and this time was graced with the view of her face: pale, framed with glossy black hair, secretive smirk and eyes so beautifully violet. Ichigo pushed harder, his heart beating out of his chest, his blood pounding under his skin hard enough that he thought he'd explode.

And then they were meeting eyes.

The image in his head, the one that had evaded him for so long, that hinted on the edge of every single fucking dream, solidified in an instant.

Her smoothness.

Her unique, addictive scent.

Her. Rukia. His.

His fingers twitch to run through her hair once more. His mouth savors for the taste of her against his tongue. His ears are desperate to hear her voice. And most of all, his mind yearns to relive the life with her that had long since been lost.

But she was talking with a red-haired man, the panic rising in her face as she shot him one last glance before bolting.

The crowd parted easily for her and yet seemed to halt Ichigo at every turn. He was almost to the door when someone finally grabbed him completely.

It was Inoue, but even so, he was on the verge of committing murder if it meant leaving the bar that much faster. "What!"

"Are you okay, Kurosaki-kun?" Her cloying voice was so wrong, it grated on his senses.

"Yeah, I'd say you look like you've seen a ghost, but we all know that's not possible." Great, Ishida was there too.

As Sado's band broke into another song, this one distinctly melancholic and heavily reminding him of all that he had to lose, Ichigo snapped. "I don't have time for this right now! Just get off of me!" He forcibly removed Orihime's grip from his arm and viciously shoved people from his path.

_I just have to see her. I just have to see her. I just have to see her._

He pushed the men entering the bar aside as he dove through the door that they'd just opened. The street lights were blinding as he set off in a stumbling run. The world faded in and out as the sake began to truly set in and suddenly he was cursing every drop that he'd so stupidly allowed to pass his lips.

But other than the flashes of memory that lurked behind his eyes, there was no physical sight of her. He could see her peeking out from his closet, lounging on his bed . . . clutched tightly in his arms . . . but nowhere was she along the deserted street.

Ichigo fell to his knees and let loose the mourning that had been roiling under the surface for five years.

Rukia, his vibrant little shinigami, had done what no other could.

She'd broken him.

* * *

><p><strong>Alright, so I know that you might be disappointed due to the sad ending, but fear not. There is another song which I feel kind of leads off from this one, so I'm playing around with making this a two-shot.<strong>

**Feel free to tell me what you think of continuing the story. Or, if you know of a song that would be perfect for them, tell me and I'll see if any plots come to mind.**

**Thanks!**


	2. 2 AM

**I'm back! At first I felt really bad about taking so long to actually write a companion piece, but in the end, it all worked out for the best. If I hadn't have waited as long as I did, I wouldn't have heard the new song _The Lonely_ by Christina Perri and this entire section of the plot would have been skipped. Thanks to this chapter, though, you really get to see that it's not only Ichigo who's got issues right now.**

**The two chapters are definitely going to converge in part three and some things are in desperate need of being explained. Don't worry, though, I have no desire for this to end with anything less than full out happiness.**

**Disclaimer: I forgot to due this for the first chapter, but rest assured that I don't own either of the songs used as inspiration thus far, nor do I own Bleach.**

* * *

><p><em>2 <em>_AM_

She spun on her toes in another endless twirl with another faceless noble during another political ploy of her brother's, even if this one was supposedly being held in honor Aizen's defeat rather than simply an extra long session of who-can-best-kiss-up-to-the-captain.

But Rukia wanted none of that. Not now, as she felt sick to her stomach and on the verge of a horrendous breakdown.

She hid it well, though. Just as Byakuya demanded.

Still, five years of stunted emotions would take their toll on anyone.

Rukia was slipped into the arms of yet another man and whisked through the crowd. At one point, the partygoers parted just enough for her to catch her reflection in a mirror and she was struck again at how pitiful she looked right now.

Her hair had been teased up in impossible loops while heavy paints and powders were used to feign life and expression upon her face. Even her dress had been altered to give the appearance of far more fortitude than she'd borne in years.

And then she was back, twisted up the arms of the newest distant Kuchiki relative. He whispered slimy words of beauty and grace into her ears, but they bounced off as she lost herself in the blurry glow that numerous candles cast about the ballroom.

Her intense stare caused her eyes to water, and, as if a mirage had been filtered over them, the next person she was suddenly dancing with was him.

Ichigo.

Over his left shoulder, she could she Orihime, tittering as she gave her best impression of a dance while Ishida made a valiant effort to keep up.

Was that Chad standing at the bar?

_Karin? Yuzu? Why are you running among the guests? Is that Kon you're chasing down?_

She struggled to follow their erratic dashes until her face was clasped in warm hands that sent tingles straight up her nerves.

"Are you back to me now?"

She breathed in deeply of his musky scent. How she'd longed for it. "I always come back to you."

Ichigo briefly pressed his forehead down to her own, his hair tickling as it brushed her sensitized skin.

"That's a lie. I seem to remember tracing after you far more often, but either way, I missed you."

"I missed you more."

"Must you win every time, midget?"

"Che. You love my feistiness."

"That's 'cause it's mine. You don't share it with anyone else."

"And what do I get that's yours in return?"

"This." He slid his left hand down her neck where it rubbed lingeringly across her pulse, then trekked further until it had traversed the length of her arm and finally stopped to grasp her palm. Ichigo bent slightly to kiss the tips of her fingers and then pressed her whole hand upon his heart.

The beat was forceful and unapologizing as it pounded the same rhythm up her arm: _Ru-ki-a, Ru-ki-a, Ru-ki-a . . ._

But as suddenly as she had fallen into her imaginings, she was shoved out again.

She sucked in air hastily as her eyes flew open to be met immediately with incongruously red hair. She reached up hesitantly to feel the crimson strands. They even felt wrong.

"It's not or-ange." Her voice broke on the last word.

"C'mon. Let's get you out of here." Renji ushered Rukia from the corner where he'd hidden her shattered demeanor from prying eyes and made a beeline for the gardens just outside.

They were hardly seated a minute before he saw her gaze shift back to that same glazed over look of loss from moments ago.

"Rukia! Stay with me here." He shook her lightly and, for the first few seconds, her head merely bobbed back and forth with the motion. When she finally blinked a couple times and refocused on him, he seized on the chance to keep her present. "Hey, are you back to me now?"

And then she was lost again. This time, her eyes clouded over with tears rather than fog, but her desperation was clear.

"Renji . . . can you not speak for a little while? Please." Rukia's bottom lip was quivering and, at the sight of the first tear breaking the meniscus that had formed upon her lower lashes, he knew that he could deny her nothing.

His eyes seemed to ask if she wanted to go home.

"Mmm." The almost-reply was followed by the slightest of nods and he easily scooped her up against his chest.

If only a single step of his shunpo could have left the lonely behind as well.

* * *

><p><strong>Problem, I'm stuck on what song the third part should be based around. Leave any recommendations that you have in a review and I'll be sure to check them out. The only thing that I ask is that the songs be related to (night)time in some way as that is kind of the theme here. Thanks!<strong>

**P.S. Sorry if the characters have seemed a little OOC, but I figure that I would be a mess in their situation as well if I were as in love with someone as they're portrayed as being here.**


End file.
